§ Mrs. Ann TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will publish the letter sent to Cumbria county council by his Department's LMS unit dated 7 May bearing reference S/P/6/131/587; and to which recipients similar letters were sent.
§ Mr. ForthThe text of the Department's letter to Cumbria county council was as follows
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of the information sent under cover of the Authority's letter dated 30 March 1993, Part 4 having been received earlier.Whilst I have not yet had the opportunity of looking in any detail at the information provided, I thought you might nevertheless appreciate knowing that it had arrived within the Department.I really must apologise for the very long time it has taken me to write to you.The information in question was the LEA's LMS budget statement made under section 42 of the Education Reform Act 1988. The Department uses these statements for two main purposes. First, to monitor performance against the key delegation and pupil-led funding requirements under the national LMS framework. The second paragraph in the late acknowledgement letter from the LMS unit to Cumbria was intended to indicate that this particular analysis had not yet started.
The second use to which section 42 statements are put is to help the Department's schools 4 branch calculate annual maintenance grant—AMG for grant—maintained schools in each LEA area. This process begins as soon as the statements are received. In the case of Cumbria a letter was sent on 19 April indicating that the budget statement had been examined and appeared to form a satisfactory basis for the calculation of AMG for the GM schools in the authority's area. Those schools are now being consulted on their budgets for the current financial year.
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